Notebook: Gordon would prefer to keep old asphalt at Kansas

Notebook: Gordon would prefer to keep old asphalt at Kansas

By Reid Spencer

Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

(July 8, 2011)

SPARTA , Ky. —If Jeff Gordon had his way, the repaving project Kansas Speedway announced Thursday would be scrapped before it started.

Gordon concedes, however, that underlying issues might have hastened the decision to repave the track where he won the inaugural race in 2001. Kansas Speedway president Pat Warren cited the harshness of Midwest winters as one of the primary reasons.

The project, which includes reconfiguring the track with variable banking and the construction of an infield road course, will take place between next year's spring and fall races at Kansas , with the exact dates of those two events still to be set.

" Kansas , to me, should not be repaved," Gordon told Sporting News on Friday at Kentucky Speedway. "But it might be a foundation issue. It might be a drainage issue. There's deeper stories behind the scenes that we maybe don't know as competitors, so they do what they need to do.

"I'm not a fan, because the new pavement that exists out there is so smooth and is not very abrasive. Goodyear has a very difficult time building tires for the new repaves because it just generates so much heat, but they don't dissipate the heat by having abrasiveness. I just wish we could talk to the companies that are doing the paving and find a way to put some abrasiveness into (it)."

To accomplish that, Gordon would like speedways and paving companies to look into possible changes to the composition of the asphalt.

"A lot of it is just in the aggregate," Gordon said. "The aggregate that is in the newer pavement is so small, and very little of it is at the surface. So that is what has caused a lot of issues. But it lasts 10 times as long as the old pavement. Certainly, for whatever reasons, the tracks feel it is necessary to do that, but I wish there was a way to meet in the middle on it."

One of the saving graces will be the progressive banking, which will reach 20 degrees at the high points of the corners.

"The variable banking certainly will help," Gordon conceded. "We saw that at Homestead . But you're still going to have a very fast racetrack, a very smooth racetrack, which a lot of times makes for less side-by-side racing in the first event or two.

"I love the surface at Kansas , so I think that's one of the reasons why Kansas stands out to me. It's a great surface right now. To me, it's perfect. You're slipping and sliding. You're running up against the wall, in the middle, at the bottom. How can the racing get much better than it is at Kansas ?"

Waltrip, Stewart run novel paint schemes at Kentucky

Michael Waltrip is showing his brotherly love at Kentucky Speedway, running a paint scheme honoring Darrell Waltrip's recent election to the NASCAR Hall of Fame. The orange-and-white paint job on Michael's No. 15 Toyota is a throwback to the Terminal Transport Chevrolet that Darrell drove to his first Sprint Cup victory, at Nashville , in 1975.

Tony Stewart is sporting a special "Back-to-School" paint scheme on his No. 14 Chevrolet. On Wednesday, Stewart and the Office Depot Foundation donated 3,000 sackpacks full of school supplies to representatives from local schools for distribution to needy students in northern Kentucky .

Are we talking gridlock?

Noting that traffic at the 1997 inaugural race at Texas Motor Speedway was a problem, a reporter asked Kentucky Speedway owner Bruton Smith how he thought traffic would be for Saturday night's Sprint Cup debut at the 1.5-mile track. The track, which seats 107,000 in the grandstands, has a sellout crowd for the night.

"It'll be a problem," Smith deadpanned. "We expect everybody to be home by Tuesday."